Fiddler's Green Music Shop

Fiddler's Green Music Shop

By Patrick Brendel Friday, 10 July 2009

Fiddler’s Green Music Shop is not your typical music store.

It’s small and quiet inside. The only noise comes from conversation and the picking of strings. Featured instruments include mandolins, harps and ukuleles.

Owner Clay Levit likes it that way, and so do his customers. Hardcore bluegrass or Cajun musicians would not be caught dead in big chain stores, he said.

“Focusing only on acoustic instruments brings in a whole different set of customers,” he said.

Levit has always been into acoustic instruments. He plays the guitar some, but his specialty is the mandolin. He boasts that his store probably has one of the best selections of mandolins in the country, with an entire wall dedicated to 11 different brands ranging from $250 to more than $10,000.

The store stocks several kinds of mandolins built in Austin by local craftsmen. (A robust selection of fiddles greets customers when they walk into the store, as well.)

A native Houstonian, Levit attended college at the University of Texas. He and wife Katy left Austin and moved to Memphis, where her parents live. After an organic vegetable farm venture did not pan out, Levit got the idea to open a music store that carried only acoustic instruments.

The original Fiddler’s Green opened in Memphis on April 1, 2006. A year and a half later, the Levits left Tennessee and returned to Texas.

“We missed Austin too much,” Levit said.

Fiddler’s Green debuted in Austin in December 2007 at 1809 W. 35th St. The music store was not the only thing Levit brought with him from Memphis—his manager and sole employee, Ben Hodges, came, too. Hodges is the resident blues expert, while Levit favors Irish folk.

The move to Austin has been great for the store, he said.

“The economy here is stronger. There’s more people, and there’s more music,” Levit said. “I was shocked there wasn’t an acoustic store like this already.”

The central Austin location has worked out well, too, because the store attracts customers from throughout the city and the region, catering mainly to two different demographics: “The people wanting to start their kid on an instrument like the violin or mandolin, and people old enough to know that acoustic is the way to go,” he said.

Levit keeps the store’s website up to date with new and used instruments in stock, but he does not give shoppers the option to purchase online. Someone who sees an instrument he or she likes can call the shop, talk to Levit or Hodges and order it over the phone. The direct communication is important to Levit.

“The key to this is being able to talk to the customers,” he said.

Jamming at Fiddler’s Green

“The most important part of the business is the community aspect of it — the people we know and the events we put on,” Fiddler’s Green Music Shop owner Clay Levit said. “That stuff is really what it’s all about. If all we did is sit and sell instruments, that’s not that much fun.”

Fidder’s Green hosts several regular jam sessions for acoustic instrument lovers. The only rules are try to keep up and do not lord your musical prowess over others.

• Austin Mandolin OrchestraFirst and third Wednesdays, 7 to 9 p.m.
• Irish SessionsSundays, 8 to 11 p.m.
• Cajun SessionsFirst and third Saturdays, 1 to 4 p.m.
• Bluegrass Sessions (Intermediate to Advanced)Second and fourth Tuesdays, 7 to 11 p.m.
• ”Sister’s” Jam (For Women Only)Second and fourth Sundays, 2 to 5 p.m.

Fiddler’s Green Music Shop, 1809 W. 35th St., 452-3900, www.fiddlersgreenmusicshop.com